And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Sent by Lynn Moss Sharman Canadian Press/New Brunswick Telegraph Journal September 24, 1999 The Maritime Fishermen's Union has called on Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to suspend the effects of last week's Supreme Court ruling recognizing natives' right to hunt and fish. In a letter to Mr. Chrétien, MFU executive secretary Michael Belliveau urged him to act "immediately and decisively" to suspend the judgment until cabinet can "properly deal with it." The letter said the high-court decision is causing "confusion and consternation" among commmercial fishermen as they watch natives fishing lobster "with impunity" during a closed season. "This is a potentially explosive situation and requires political action," said Mr. Belliveau in his letter. And federal Fisheries Minister Herb Dhaliwal yesterday repeated calls for restraint and calm yesterday as tension over native fishing rights mounts in the Maritimes. "We've asked people to just be patient and show .Ö.Ö. good will and that we work together," Mr. Dhaliwal said in an interview. "We're observing and monitoring the situation very closely, and recording all activities. And we'll be evaluating the situation on a day-by-day basis." The issue will also be raised when Mr. Dhaliwal meets today with Canadian fisheries ministers in Quebec City. "I think we all recognize that we need to deal with it in an expeditious fashion," he said. In the interim, Mr. Dhaliwal has instructed his officials to meet with native leaders, non-native commercial fishermen and others affected by the ruling, he said. The Minister is confident that potentially ugly confrontations will be avoided. "It's not in anybody's interest to jeopardize the resource in any way. And I think it's in everybody's interest to deal with this in an orderly and rational basis." Meanwhile, backed by the weight of the Supreme Court of Canada, Maritime aboriginal leaders are making plans to take a share of the region's Crown resources. Chiefs from across Eastern Canada met at the Tobique reserve in western New Brunswick yesterday to begin work on a strategy to take full advantage of a recent high court ruling giving the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet unfettered hunting and fishing rights. The chiefs headed into their private meeting confident that it's a whole new ball game, and they had little sympathy for corporate and conservation concerns about a possible free-for-all on Maritime waterways and in the woods.Natives in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island were back on the water yesterday, pulling in hundreds of kilograms of out-of-season lobster and infuriating non-native fishers who are worried about depleted stocks.''The non-Indians don't want to share,'' said Chief Lawrence Paul of Millbrook, N.S., co-chairman of the Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nation Chiefs. ''But due to the Supreme Court decision, the rules of the game have changed and they'll have to share, whether they like it or not. I think the bottom line on the whole thing is not conservation, it's not about saving fish stocks, the bottom line is greed.'' It's not just commercial lobster fishermen who are worried about the impact of unlimited aboriginal fishing rights. In New Brunswick, conservation groups dedicated to saving the endangered Atlantic salmon are calling for restraint. ''The recent Supreme Court decision introduces yet another large weight to the burden of conserving our fish and wildlife resources,'' said J.W. (Bud) Bird, head of the Miramichi Salmon Association. ''It is a matter of very serious concern that a new commercial motivation toward possibly excessive harvests has been confirmed in the law of our land.'' Some politicians have called for a cooling-off period to let the dust settle from the Supreme Court decision in the case of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaq Donald Marshall Jr. The case went to the high court after Marshall, who first came to national attention in the 1980s for spending 11 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit, was convicted in 1996 of catching eels out of season and without a licence. The ruling upheld a 1760 treaty between the Mi'kmaq and British Crown giving aboriginals an unlimited right to hunt, fish, gather and trade. Chief Edwin Bernard of the Tobique First Nation said he had some sympathy with the desire to step back and digest the decision before plunging full bore into commercial fishing and hunting. ''But there's another part of me that says our people have been suffering for over 200 years, so why wait any longer,'' Mr. Bernard said. ''This treaty was signed in 1760 and here it is 200 years later and we're just getting our rights back.'' The chiefs are hoping to put together a position paper outlining rules and regulations to guide aboriginal hunting and fishing. Mr. Bernard said they are especially concerned about conservation. They've agreed to another meeting, possibly next week, which will involve lawyers who worked on the Marshall case. Mr. Paul rejected worries that natives will abuse their newly confirmed rights and engage in unbridled slaughter of fish and wildlife. Non-natives, he said bitterly, have already done that. ''The Mi'kmaq and Maliseet people believe in sharing,'' Mr. Paul said. "But to the non-Indian, sharing is a very bitter word in their mouths.'' Boycott natives, lobster buyers asked New Brunswick Telegraph Journal 9/24/99 Non-native fishermen consider laying their own traps until Ottawa, native leaders come up with regulations By PHILIP LEE, MIKE TENSZEN and KATHY KAUFIELD As the Mi'kmaq lobster fishery in Miramichi Bay escalates, non-native fishermen are pleading with Ottawa to regulate the harvest and at the same time are asking all buyers to boycott the native catch. Michael Belliveau, executive director of the Maritime Fishermen's Union, faxed a letter yesterday to all fish packers and buyers in eastern New Brunswick, asking them to stop buying lobster from Mi'kmaq fishermen until Ottawa negotiates a regulated fishing plan with native leaders. "We are faced with a very volatile situation and we require your co-operation," Mr. Belliveau said in the letter. "Further, where we find a buyer not willing to co-operate we are asking our members not to co-operate or trade with this buyer." As tensions continue to rise in the area, politicians and native leaders are calling for a period of calm negotiation. The Mi'kmaq lobster fishery began hours after the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its landmark Marshall decision last Friday that confirmed the treaty rights of natives to hunt and fish commercially. The federally regulated lobster season off the east coast of New Brunswick closed in July. Fishermen estimate that there are now between 1,000 and 3,000 traps in the water and more traps are being trucked into the area. There are also reports from the area that some non-native fishermen are taking advantage of the Marshall ruling, setting traps themselves and supplying native fishermen with equipment. The Fishermen's Union has asked Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to suspend the Supreme Court ruling until the Marshall decision can be interpreted and regulated. "The mood is very tense," Mr. Belliveau said yesterday. "The more the Department of Fisheries and Oceans sits on this, they're driving our fishermen into a corner." Mr. Belliveau said native fishermen are harvesting vulnerable lobsters that are feeding vigorously as they prepare for winter and there is a finite population of lobsters in the waters off Miramichi Bay. "Your catch rates are way above what they would normally be in a spring season," Mr. Belliveau said. "They've gone through their summer moult and they're building up their strength so they're feeding heavily in the fall, so they trap easily. "The commercial fishermen in that area who rely on that stock are being asked to shoulder 300 years of grievance of the native people." Federal Minister of Fisheries Herb Dhaliwal has said only that his department is monitoring the situation and will act if the resource is threatened. Zoel Breau, a long-time lobster fisherman from Neguac, said the native harvest will damage the viability of the important spring lobster fishery. Mr. Breau said he and the 200 or so commercial fishermen who work in Miramichi Bay are not opposed to a native commercial fishery but there must be rules to protect the resource. "There's nothing to regulate them," he said. "This is completely out of proportion. Something has to give." He warned that many non-native fishermen are prepared to put their own traps back in the water to protest what is happening in the bay. New Brunswick native leader Roger Augustine, the chairman of the national Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources, said we are witnessing the initial reaction to the Marshall decision on Miramichi Bay and that order will come in time. "You've got to give the New Brunswick leaders, the chiefs and councillors time to get together to try to resolve this. It's going to take time." Mr. Augustine is advocating the creation of a Maritime Aboriginal Fishermen's Union that would set regulations for the fishery. "I really feel confident that the chiefs are going to sit down and the councillors are going to sit down and look at this rationally," he said. "People have been waiting for this for a long time and I think you pretty well have to let the thing run its course. I just hope that there's no violence out there. That's all I'm concerned about." Justice Minister Brad Green said his government is planning to meet as soon as possible with all stakeholders to try to find ways to manage the new reality of resource management in New Brunswick in the wake of the Marshall decision. "Aboriginal people in the province have a right affirmed by the Supreme Court, and I fully expect that some members of the aboriginal community are going to exercise that right, and there's nothing that the province of New Brunswick can do to prevent them from doing that," Mr. Green said. "However, there is a need, and it's an immediate need, to try to bring everyone together to sit down and discuss how we are going to approach this in a reasonable, common sense way. "In the meantime, we're calling on the people of New Brunswick - both aboriginal and non-aboriginal - to be responsible, show some patience and restraint and give everyone an opportunity to come to terms with what the Supreme Court of Canada decided last week. "I will also say this very clearly: Anyone in the province of New Brunswick who engages in criminal activity, whether it's out of frustration or not, will be charged and prosecuted." Mr. Belliveau noted that the fallout from the Marshall ruling extends much further than Miramichi Bay. Natives are fishing off southwest Nova Scotia and hunting in the woods throughout the Maritimes. He wonders why politicians in Ottawa seem unprepared to respond to a Supreme Court decision they knew could have major implications for resource management. "Where are the leaders on this?" he asks. "It's been well known in the industry the basics of the claim, but Ottawa doesn't appear to have had any contingency plans, nor do most of the people in Ottawa give us any sense that they really understand the impacts of this." Mr. Augustine also wondered why the Department of Fisheries and Oceans wasn't prepared to handle the situation. "They must have thought the decision would go the other way," he said. "It caught everybody off guard." Mr. Belliveau said the Marshall case has now moved from the courts into the political arena. The decision states that treaty rights can be subject to regulation and entitles natives only to a moderate livelihood, not the accuulation of wealth. Mr. Belliveau said an unregulated fishery creates chaos on the water and opens the door to poaching. "If you've got traps out there on the water, how is anybody supposed to know they were set by native people? There's no indication who they belong to and normal procedure when you have traps fishing out of season is for fisheries officers to impound them. We do know that even now there are some non-natives involved in fishing. We don't know to what extent. They're certainly involved in the procurement of traps. It's a dog's breakfast. "We shouldn't be asked to stand aside while our moderate livelihoods are put to ruin." Mr. Belliveau said the union supports bringing natives into a regulated commercial fishery where they, like the fishermen he represents, can earn a moderate living. "There's every likelihood that they can be accommodated within normal fishing season because we all have our expectations to earn our moderate livelihood within normal fishing season." Friday, September 24, 1999 Fishermen plan native protest By Cassandra Szklarski -- The Canadian Press An attempt by fisheries officials to quell fears year-round fishing rights for natives will deplete lobster stocks held little comfort yesterday for some Atlantic fishermen. Neil Bellefontaine, a regional director for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, said government regulations will keep non-status and non-native fishermen from illegally entering the waters. He was responding to last week's historic Supreme Court of Canada ruling that gave natives the right to fish year-round and sparked anger among some commercial fishermen who fear it will deplete the resource and threaten their livelihood. Nova Scotia fishermen are threatening to fish illegally Monday if the government does not address their concerns. Kenneth Devine, a Rockville, Yarmouth Co., lobster fisherman for 30 years, said he doesn't believe government officials will be able to protect lobster stocks under the ruling. "To open it up year-round, it's going to be a disaster, is what it is," he said, explaining the decision has opened the door for over-eager fishers to mine the ocean. "I think that is ludicrous." About 100 fisheries officials have been monitoring Nova Scotia's waters and have found no transgressions so far, said Bellefontaine, who met with Mi'kmaq officials for more than two hours yesterday. "There are always concerns there are elements out there, non-aboriginal, that will want to take advantage of this opportunity and we're watching that very closely," he said. But Devine said bureaucrats such as Bellefontaine are "a lot out of touch" with what's happening off the coast. Bernie Berry of the Yarmouth Fixed Gear Association said most of his members aren't worried about Mi'kmaq practices, but rather non-natives and non-status fishermen who he says illegally took to the waters when the ruling came down last Friday. Mike Belliveau, head of the Maritime Fishermen's Union in Shediac, N.B., said his group sent a letter to Prime Minister Jean Chretien asking the federal government to suspend the court ruling. Belliveau said he'd like to see a 30- to 60-day cooling-off period. Bernd Christmas, a Nova Scotia Mi'kmaq negotiator, said non-native concerns about the consequences of the ruling can be dealt with through dialogue. "I think a lot of the fear and concern has been created because of a lack of understanding of what are the aspirations of the Mi'kmaq community and how they will manage their fishery in the future," he said, noting natives are very concerned about conservation. The Supreme Court ruled last week that natives can fish without a licence year-round after Donald Marshall Jr., a Nova Scotia Mi'kmaq, appealed his 1996 conviction for fishing eels without a licence. Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
